The Roanoke Times | File April

Virginia Military Institute has softened physical standards for women, a move it says was planned before the investigation.

The Roanoke Times | File January

More than 1,400 cadets attended Virginia Military Institute last year, and more than 100 of them were women.

VMI has worked to foster a reputation for promoting diversity since it began accepting female cadets in 1997.

LEXINGTON -- The state attorney general's office is working to defend the Virginia Military Institute in what's been a barely publicized 14-month federal probe into allegations that, more than a decade after enrolling its first female students, the school remains a hotbed of sexism.

The complaint that prompted the investigation asserts not only that an overall hostile atmosphere exists at the school, but that its tough physical standards are unfair to women. Federal investigators halted their query into the physical standards, though, after VMI recently softened them. Col. Mike Strickler, executive assistant to VMI's superintendent, said the change in the physical requirements was not a response to the investigation and had long been under consideration.

Reflecting the seriousness of the investigation into other issues, Strickler said investigators have held numerous meetings with VMI officials, and the school has turned over a significant amount of data and documents.

The federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation into whether VMI permits an environment hostile to women -- in both the barracks and the classroom -- after receiving a complaint in June 2008, department spokesman Jim Bradshaw said.

The agency, Bradshaw said, is also looking into whether VMI's marriage and parenthood policies discriminate against female cadets; whether the school fairly resolves student and employee complaints; and whether the school's tenure and promotion processes discriminate against women.

The federal investigation into sexual discrimination at the school goes on as one VMI cadet faces charges of raping and sodomizing a female cadet in March. The accused cadet, Stephen Lloyd of Mason Neck, is scheduled to stand trial in October.

VMI reluctantly admitted women in 1997, one year after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to go co-educational or give up its public funding. The 1996 court ruling was a defeat for the Virginia attorney general's office, which had argued that excluding women from the school was not unconstitutional.

While the school's fight to remain single-sex garnered national media interest, the current investigation has drawn little attention. The Rockbridge Advocate, a weekly newspaper, ran a story on the probe on one of its inside pages, and Washington and Lee University's student newspaper followed with a story of its own. Deputy Attorney General Maureen Matsen, who is handling the discrimination investigation on behalf of VMI, declined to discuss it.

A copy of the complaint -- obtained by The Roanoke Times through a Freedom of Information Act request -- sheds little light on the complainant's identity. Large portions of the document were redacted. Among the few readable sentences: "The language and terminology that is used and considered acceptable by VMI in the barracks reflects a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks." And: "A male VMI graduate is almost always given preferential treatment."

The suggestion that VMI is hostile to women represents a frontal assault on the reputation the school has worked to establish over the past decade as a place that welcomes women looking for a challenge. VMI recently won an award from the international Council for Advancement and Support of Education for its five-year effort to recruit a diverse student body. More than 1,400 cadets attended the school last year, more than 100 of them women.

Since VMI went co-ed, only 159 women have graduated from the school, and the dropout rate among women has been higher than among men. About 11.4 percent of male freshmen scheduled to graduate in 2011 resigned before their sophomore year, compared with 28.95 percent of their female classmates.

Maj. Amy Goetz, assistant marketing director for VMI, said a major thrust of the school's award-winning recruitment campaign is to let potential female students know that VMI is tough. If they know what they're getting into when they enroll, Goetz said, they'll be less likely to quit later. Recruiting brochures say upfront that "VMI is not for everyone."

"We're trying to be more transparent," Goetz said.

The softening of physical standards was also an effort to retain women who choose to come to VMI and not a response to the federal investigation, Goetz added.

Prior to the changes, the minimum requirement for both male and female cadets was five pull-ups. Now, female cadets who can do one pull-up can pass the test. According to one VMI official, about 80 percent of male cadets had passed the pull-up test in the past decade, while only 20 percent of females passed it.

VMI's rules on marriage and parenthood, one of the policies now under scrutiny, state that "any cadet who marries or becomes a parent" is expected to resign. If cadets don't voluntarily quit, the institute will force them out. According to the rules, "the responsibilities of parenthood are deemed to begin upon a cadet's learning that a child has been conceived."

The school's policy on tenure for professors, also the subject of federal scrutiny, states that a committee considers teaching ability, scholarly engagement, professional citizenship and contributions to the development of cadets in granting professors tenure.

One of the VMI officials initially tasked to respond to the federal inquiry was acting Dean Col. William Stockwell. Stockwell committed suicide in early February one day after meeting with government officials, said his brother, Robert Stockwell of Atlanta, who added that the family has no reason to believe the suicide was connected to the investigation.

"There was nothing that we or anybody else could have foreseen that was related to the conduct or resolution of the investigation," Stockwell said.

"He was under a tremendous amount of stress. There were a lot of things going on. But his work was considered to be excellent by his peers and his colleagues."

Strickler said VMI has heard nothing from federal officials about when the investigation will be finished.